Slackless type drawbar assemblies have generally been well known, in the railroad industry, for several years as a viable means to connect together the adjacently disposed ends of a pair of railway freight cars, in both a substantially slack free and semi-permanent fashion, prior to the development of the present invention.
In other words, these railway freight cars typically will not require frequent separation during service. Normally, these railway freight cars will only be separated during a required repair and/or routine maintenance being performed on one or more of them.
These particular railway freight cars are normally of the type utilized in what is most commonly referred to, in the railroad industry, as dedicated service. Railway freight cars of such dedicated service type will at least include: those cars which are normally utilized to haul coal, coke and/or various other types of raw minerals, automotive type transport carriers, cars which are used in transporting various types of building materials and tank cars which are used to transport various types of liquids.
Examples of some other raw minerals transported in these dedicated service railway freight cars include: various types of ore, cement and stone. The various types of liquids that are transported by such dedicated service railway freight cars will at least include a number of different chemicals. Building materials transported in this manner include: lumber, dry wall, plywood, paneling, etc.
A typical drawbar assembly includes the following elements: a female connection member, a male connection member retained in such female connection member, a drawbar connected to such male connection member and at least one wedge member.
One of the major drawbacks of these prior art type slackless drawbar assemblies is that a method did not exist that would enable one to assemble and attach the drawbar assembly unit as a whole to the carrier plate prior to the installation of such slackless drawbar unit into the center sill portion of a railway freight car. In other words, each component had to be installed as an individual part. This required a significant amount of time and effort to insure that the individual components were in proper position and alignment prior to use. The present invention provides for a method to overcome this problem associated with the prior art method of installing a slackless drawbar assembly.